Open orchard consisting of very widely spaced trees is the goal of the farm. In fact, the goal is that a casual observer may not even notice any pattern to the trees at all despite their strategic placement. Thus the main livestock focus of the farm will be pigs to self-harvest the tree crops. To a lesser extent goats and cattle will harvest the pasture growth clearing the way for pastured poultry to harvest bugs and tender grasses from the pasture. All animals are integrated into the system in a manner that maximizes land use while using attributes of various pathogen cycles to eliminate them from the farm. No animals that share pathogens will be mixed and forage areas will be rested adequately to prevent any pathogens from obtaining the a livestock host effectively breaking the lifecycle of the pathogen.

Seasonality is the main consideration in design for the various orchards. Dropping their crop and the timing of this event can ensure that the self-harvest of pigs is maximized while minimizing the need for supplemental, off-farm feed. This concept has been broken into 4 posts, one for each season.

As the trees mature and crop bearing increases, the amount of hogs they can support will increase as well. As such, only as many hogs as can be supported by the tree crops will be run. This is a (very) long term project.

Note: Mineral supplement will be available to pigs at all time. Supplemental feed, namely to address protein deficiencies in tree crops, will be available to pigs at all time as well. To the later point, alternative and sustainable/self-sufficient protein sources like mealworms will be explored. Pigs are as intelligent as dogs, so each supplement of mineral or feed will be presented separately so the pigs can freely choose what is needed to round out their diets.